


Ad Eros

by The_Cimmerians



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:32:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cimmerians/pseuds/The_Cimmerians
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Kurt grows up. Blaine does too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ad Eros

~ 2007 ~

Stupid satin pumps. He should have practiced more. He should have gone with the lower heels. He should have listened to his father’s well-meant concern, no matter how disappointing. He should have… should have…

Kurt gave up on what he should have done in favor of running—as fast as he could pelt down the street and around the corner—but not fast enough, because he could hear them still behind him, hooting and bellowing and pounding along the pavement, and on Halloween nobody was going to think twice about it, nobody was going to stop them—

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He’d run without thinking and he’d gone wrong, not onto a street but into an alley, and it was dark and he had no time to turn and get back to the road, back to the light and oh God this was the worst mistake of his damn (short) life, and Jesus if they killed him it was going to kill his dad, it would just kill him—

Kurt came to a stop against the cold bricks at the rear of the alley, shaking, out of breath and gasping what felt like a thimbleful of air at a time, his heart pounding out of control in his throat, stuck, frozen where he stood while the other boys—bigger boys, older boys—rounded the corner and then… slowed, spreading out, fanning out, walking slowly towards him.

They were all made up as zombies. Jock zombies. Somehow, that seemed terribly fitting. And in what little moonlight there was, their cheap make-up seemed terribly… not like make-up.

The biggest boy, the one with a face like a half-chewed, angry slab of ham, stopped walking. He put his hands in the pockets of his letterman’s jacket. “You want to take back what you said about my mother, you little bitch?”

Kurt was terrified—he honestly couldn’t say he’d ever been more terrified than he was right now, but apparently that didn’t matter at all to the part of his brain that thought its entire job was to get him in trouble—and keep him there. “Considering that all I really accused her of was giving birth to you, I hardly see how I could improve upon the insult.” His voice was breathy, shaky. It was also, unfortunately, perfectly distinct.

“Okay,” the boy said, stepping forward. “That’s it, faggot. I’m going to—”

“What the hell did you just call him?” Sudden light, a rectangular square of warm, yellow light from the right side of the alley, and a black shape silhouetted there.

The boy walking toward him faltered, then stopped. “Nothing, I… look, this is none of your business—”

“Oh, but I think it is,” the shape said, and stepped into the alley—and unreality heaped on unreality because oh, man—the guy was dressed like some kind of weird Batman knockoff—“I think since there’s one of him and… what, five? Five of you, and since he looks like he’s half your age and you just called him a word that I bet your parents would be very interested to know you used—I think it’s very much my business.” The guy stood in the alley with his arms folded across his chest, an honest-to-God cape tossed back from his wide shoulders. “So any of you who don’t want to leave right now are welcome to stick around while I explain the term hate crime—including the extra penalties that can carry in both civil and criminal courts—”

The guy’s voice was calm, composed, and he just kept talking while the five boys looked at each other, occasionally throwing furious glances at Kurt—as if this was somehow his fault, really?—and then followed the lead boy’s jerk of his head and stomped off, grumbling.

Kurt took a breath, and nearly slid to the ground. Now that it was over he was dizzy, he was about to throw up, or pass out, or laugh hysterically, he was… “Thanks,” he said vaguely, swaying a little. He was… remarkably polite, for someone about to throw up and pass out in an alley. “Thank you.”

“Hey,” the guy said, stepping closer, his face half in shadow but the half Kurt could see held nothing but warm concern, nothing but kindness. “Did they hurt you?”

“No,” he managed, letting go of the wall, tossing back one wild curl that had come loose from his wig. “No, but… I’m pretty sure they were planning to, if you hadn’t shown up.”

The guy frowned, then nodded. “Why don’t you come in and catch your breath—you can leave through the front, once the coast is clear.”

Kurt stepped through the doorway into a narrow hallway, through a tiny back room with sinks and shelves of supplies and a walk-in refrigerator, and through to… “This is the Lima Bean,” he said, suddenly oriented again, and he had no idea he’d run so far out of his way.

“Yes it is,” the guy said, going to a cooler behind the counter for a bottle of water, handing it to Kurt with a brief nod. “Welcome to my little corner of American enterprise.” He smiled. It was a nice smile. “I’m Blaine.”

“Kurt.” Kurt couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. “Not Batman?”

Blaine looked down at himself and laughed, as if he’d forgotten. “Oh—um, no. Nightbird. Sorry, it’s—Halloween, I just closed up and I was on my way to a party—”

“Me too—before I was waylaid by zombies.”

Blaine eyed him. “Something the original Louis XIV probably didn’t have to deal with.”

Kurt was immediately, absurdly touched. “You recognized me.”

Blaine got a second bottle of water, opened it, and drank. “Your costume is… really amazing, the level of detail—”

Whether it was relief at not being killed or just gladness for the opportunity to talk about it with someone who seemed to actually understand, Kurt wasn’t sure, but before he knew it he’d launched into a detailed explanation of everything that had gone into his costume—the hours of research, the difficulty of finding a stiff enough brocade for the waistcoat that didn’t look like he’d pirated the fabric from an abandoned couch, the hellish challenges presented by applying massive amounts of lace to velvet without allowing the fabric to pucker… “Oh my God, I’m babbling. I’m sorry.”

Blaine grinned. “No need to be sorry—you did an amazing job, you should be proud.” His eyes rose to Kurt’s face. “How old are you?”

“Twelve.” There was no need for defiance, not in this situation—but it was a habit that was hard to break. He lifted his chin. “Why? How old are you?”

“Twenty-five,” Blaine said amiably, sipping his water. “And I’m pretty sure when I was twelve I was chopping up pillowcases to try to make new outfits for my Power Rangers—and doing a terrible job of it. So believe me when I tell you that you’re way ahead of the curve.”

Kurt smiled, and felt his cheeks go hot. “Oh, I believe you.”

Blaine laughed, and reached out to resettle Kurt’s hat. “Well, good.” He stood up and moved towards the glass front door, peering out into the street. “It looks like the zombie horde has gone elsewhere—but I still think maybe you should let me walk you to wherever you’re going, Kurt. Just to be on the safe side.”

Kurt pursed his lips. “Is this part of your sworn duty as a caped crusader? Because I’m not really the damsel-in-distress type.”

“Of course you’re not,” Blaine scoffed, flicking back his cape. “And no, Nightbird has no part of this—it’s part of my sworn duty as the proprietor of the Lima Bean. No customer will be attacked by zombies on my watch. I took a solemn vow.”

Kurt tilted his head. “You know, you’re kind of weird, for a grown-up.”

Blaine smiled again. It made his eyes crinkle. “Thanks.”

By the time they got to the door of Mercedes’ house they were deep into a thorough deconstruction of the latest episode of The Simple Life, and Kurt waved goodbye to Blaine and rang Mercedes’ doorbell and had to look down, just to make sure his buckled satin pumps were actually touching the ground.

***

This was a terrible idea. “Look, dad, we don’t need to do this—”

“No, Kurt, I think we do.” His dad was calm, but implacable. “I really want to meet your new friend—I think I ought to meet the guy who managed to lure you away from the tire shop as your preferred homework location, okay?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “Well, you have to admit, it smells better in here.”

Dad’s nose wrinkled. “It smells like a coffee-snob convention, if you ask me.”

There was a retort on the tip of his tongue but he never got to use it—they were up. “Kurt!” Blaine greeted him with his usual enthusiasm, spotless polo shirt and bow-tie and every hair in place, and God why hadn’t he told his dad that he’d been studying at a girlfriend’s house, maybe hinted that he was trying to get her pregnant or something—

“Hey, Blaine,” he said, resigned, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “This is my dad. He wanted to meet you.”

“Mr. Hummel,” Blaine said, wiping his hands on a towel and reaching over the counter to shake. “It’s a pleasure. Kurt’s told me so much about you—”

“Yeah, well, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have two heads or, you know, teeth filed into points or something—”

“God. Dad—”

“No, Kurt—your dad’s just looking out for you,” Blaine said quietly, nodding. “It’s a good thing.” He leaned on the counter. “You want your usual? Skim hot-chocolate, frothed, no whip?”

“Since I’m here,” Kurt mumbled, shrugging.

“And for you?”

Kurt’s dad made a face. It was the same face he made at holiday dinners when Grandma Hummel tried to scold him into eating his peas. “Uh, nothing. Thanks, but this is all a little… frou-frou for me.”

Blaine nodded solemnly. “Uh-huh. Hmm. I think I can work with that.”

Kurt’s drink appeared on the counter a short time later, next to a tall cup. “This is a long black,” Blaine said, pushing the cup towards Kurt’s dad. “Tell me what you think?”

Kurt’s dad made the pea-avoiding face again, but he picked up the cup and sipped. “That’s… not bad.” He sipped again. “Actually not bad.”

Blaine smiled. Kurt felt a little lightheaded. “Thanks, Mr. Hummel—”

“Burt,” Kurt’s dad said, and then blinked, as if he’d surprised himself. “So… what do I owe you?”

Blaine waved him off. “You get the Hummel family discount. Come by any time.” Kurt snagged his cup in one hand and his dad’s sleeve in the other, dragging him slowly towards his customary table in the corner—the one that offered the best view of Blaine being… Blaine.

“Come on, dad. You’ve seen his teeth, for God’s sake; let’s sit down.”

***

“Is he married? Your friend, Blaine?” His dad sounded… casual. Too casual. But he was actually drinking the coffee, so it couldn’t be all bad.

“I… don’t know. I’ve never asked. But he doesn’t talk about… anyone, so… I don’t know.”

“Oh,” his dad said, and that sounded a whole lot like that wasn’t going to be the end of it.

But it was.

***

Blaine let him help decorate the Lima Bean for Christmas, deferred to his taste (if not his suggested budget). He let Kurt set the store’s holiday playlist, and put up a small chalkboard behind the counter that said: Holiday Atmosphere by Kurt Hummel, in graceful script. Kurt stayed past closing every day he could get away with it, waiting for the best and dearest time—once the main lights were turned off and the customers were gone and the front door sign had been flipped to ‘Closed’—when there was just twinkling holiday lights and the rich smell of coffee and Blaine, singing unselfconsciously along with the music while he cleaned up and readied everything for the morning shift, careful and meticulous and so at ease; fantastically, overwhelmingly handsome, and dangerously, impossibly perfect.

Impossible.

But it was all too easy to pretend otherwise.

***

The Lima Bean was slammed with last-minute shoppers on Christmas Eve, and despite the seasonal help he’d hired Blaine was busy enough that he actually allowed Kurt to pitch in, with only one rushed, breathless remark about reckless defiance of child labor laws. Kurt plated muffins and bagged biscotti and ran to the back for milk and lugged trash and emptied bus tubs and hunted down lost bottles of peppermint syrup and washed his hands so many times that he made a mental note to do an overnight treatment with his lined gloves and duck fat, and tried really hard not to get distracted by the up-close view of Blaine’s graceful-quick movements behind the counter.

“You sure you’re doing okay?” Blaine asked him at one point during the middle of the chaos, both hands warm on Kurt’s shoulders, staring down at him with a harried half-smile on his face, one unruly curl tumbling down his forehead and oh.

Kurt licked his lips. “I’m going straight to the Wage and Hour Division unless you double my salary.”

Blaine snorted. “Done. Can you please get me another gallon of two-percent?”

That night after closing, Kurt retreated to his table and actually dozed a little despite the way his head was still buzzing and zooming along, watching Blaine dreamily while his eyes grew heavier and heavier—

Until Blaine was right there, sliding into the chair opposite, and Kurt jerked upright, ready to plead work-induced exhaustion until Blaine slid a slender, gold-wrapped box with an elaborately-tied cream tulle bow across the table towards him.

“Merry Christmas, Kurt.”

Any possible words were lost in eagerness as he untied, unwrapped, and shifted through endless layers of tissue to find—

“Don’t let the pattern creep you out,” Blaine said. “It’s an—”

“Alexander McQueen,” Kurt murmured, the silk chiffon of the scarf so fine and soft under his fingertips that touching it almost felt criminal, the color a perfect, pale-lapis blue that sang to him immediately. “Oh my God.”

He looked up at Blaine, who was heavy-eyed and evidently exhausted but smiling, leaning his head on his fist. Kurt swallowed. “Blaine. I’m pretty sure I’m gay.”

That wasn’t what he meant to say. It wasn’t what he meant to say at all—but now his eyes were watering and his voice sounded wobbly, and he was clutching his beautiful, beautiful scarf with fingers that were shaking, pulling it tight to his chest like it was the last scrap of fabric he owned. “Nobody… no-one knows. My friends don’t. My dad… Nobody.”

Blaine’s brows tilted up, and his lips pressed together for a moment. “I… Kurt, it’s okay. It’s really… it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

He was lightheaded, swimming, swaying where he sat, immersed in relief and panic. “Really?”

Blaine leaned forward with both his forearms on the table, and it was so quiet—the last notes of Liz Callaway faded into silence, and it was just them, just the two of them. “Really. I mean… I’m not going to tell you it’s going to be easy, but you… well. I think you already know that. And you… you’re not alone.”

Not alone. His eyes stung all over again. Kurt ducked his head into the mass of tissue paper clutched to his chest, then shook himself and put his present down, reaching for his book-bag. He slid a red lamé-wrapped box tied with black velvet ribbon across the table to Blaine.

Blaine’s eyes lit up when he got it open. “Kurt Hummel, where on earth did you find a bow tie with… espresso cups on it?”

“I made it,” Kurt said softly, then sniffed a little. “From a pair of girls’ pajamas.”

Their eyes met, and then they were both laughing. “I love it,” Blaine said, tucking it lovingly into the box. “It’s perfect.”

***

~ 2008 ~

“I have come to the conclusion that eighth grade was invented by people who somehow survived eighth grade, and wanted revenge.” He flopped dramatically into his chair, unslinging his book-bag as if it carried the weight of the world.

Blaine stopped on his way by, a full bus tub in his hands. “Luddites getting to you again?”

Kurt sighed. “It’s not that I think of myself as better than they are, Blaine; it’s just that I have nothing in common with a bunch of illiterate imbeciles.”

Blaine snorted. “Noblesse oblige, my Lord.” He did a stylized bow despite the load of dishes, and Kurt tried not to look at the way his biceps bulged.

“Every damn day,” Kurt said quietly. “Need some help?”

After closing, he was drawn out of his corner—or was driven out of it by the maddening irrationality of rational numbers, which was pretty much the same thing. Blaine didn’t even look up when Kurt jumped up to perch on the counter, swinging his crossed ankles. “Did you hate eighth grade?”

Blaine blinked a little, frowning. “I… huh. That was my first year at boarding school, actually.”

“You went to boarding school?” He regarded Blaine levelly, then shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course you did. So… did you hate it?”

“Surprisingly, no—I kind of expected it to be… I don’t know; cold, and dictatorial, and… isolating—”

“But it wasn’t?”

Blaine smiled. It was his subtlest smile, the most complex one, the one that Kurt hadn’t entirely figured out yet. “Not as much as living at home was.”

“Oh.” Kurt swallowed. Waited. And when Blaine didn’t say anything else, Kurt shifted his gaze to the world outside the Lima Bean’s windows, the world he so often felt that he needed to run away from, the world he could only truly shut out when he was right here. “Blaine?”

“Mmm?”

“Is it weird that we’re… friends?”

Blaine’s lips twitched up on one side. “Oh, probably.” He glanced up from the sheet of figures he was reviewing, looking up through his lashes in a way that made Kurt’s breath catch in his throat. “Works for me, though.”

“Yeah.” Kurt swung his legs, looked at the light gilding the curve of Blaine’s cheek, and squeezed the counter under his hands. “Me, too.”

***

“Welcome to the Lima Bean—what can I get for you?”

“Let’s see, how about… a spiced vanilla chai, one of those raspberry crumble bars—and your phone number?”

Kurt’s head whipped up from his books so fast that his neck twinged. The guy at the counter—one of the local academy upperclassmen—was smirking, smiling and confident—and Blaine was… blushing. And grinning, a little. It was a rare slow night, and there were only a few other customers in the place.

Blaine grabbed a paper cup without looking, shaking his head. “Thanks, but I’m old enough to be… well, too old for you.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t,” the guy said suggestively, and Kurt wondered if he could somehow accidentally drop his geography book in such a way that it would fly across the room and smack the guy right in the face. He was stuck, caught, unable to look away from Blaine self-consciously doing his thing, and the jerk at the counter shamelessly watching him do it.

“Your chai,” Blaine said, with not-quite-his-usual flourish. “And your bar.”

“No phone number?” Insufferable. The guy was insufferable. When Blaine just shook his head, the guy took a piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the counter. “Well, here’s mine, if you change your mind. I guarantee you won’t regret it.”

Kurt wrestled epically with himself, and finally decided not trip the guy on his way out the door. He got up and walked to the counter. Blaine was wiping up a spot of spilled steamed milk, still looking self-conscious, still shaking his head. While Kurt watched, Blaine picked the slip of paper up from the counter and tossed it in the trash.

“Kids these days,” Kurt said mildly, and Blaine finally looked at him, and burst out laughing.

***

And that was all well and good, but then there was Friday Night Guy, the guy who showed up every Friday night for six weeks running, tall and pale with a chiseled, modeled face and a thick shock of black hair and a mouthwatering collection of Armani suits, and Kurt first stared at him because of his impeccable taste in scarves, but when he went to the counter (ostensibly for a pencil, really to get a better look at the guy’s Burberry), he was caught all at once by the look on Blaine’s face when the guy got to the front of the line.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Kurt froze with one of Blaine’s pencils in his hand.

Blaine cleared his throat. “Your usual?”

“Please.” They were looking at each other. Really looking. The guy spoke so softly it was almost impossible to overhear what he was saying. “Are we still on for tomorrow night?”

“Absolutely.”

Kurt kept himself very still, and absolutely expressionless. When the guy took his drink and moved away, Blaine watched him go—until he spotted Kurt standing next to him. He grinned a little. “Um. Racquetball. We’re playing racquetball.” He swallowed visibly. “Tomorrow night.”

“Uh-huh,” Kurt drawled, hating the blush in his cheeks but powerless to do anything about it. “Right.”

It was stupid, completely pointless and stupid, to be upset about it.

It was stupid, completely pointless and stupid, to cry himself to sleep about it.

That didn’t stop him.

***

“Jesus Christ, Kurt,” Blaine said, grabbing for more paper towels. “No—keep your head back—here.” He pressed the towels into Kurt’s hand. “Keep the pressure on it, okay?”

“I really liked this vest,” Kurt intoned mournfully. “This vest was perfect for pulling an outfit together—”

“Maybe not an outfit you plan to brawl in, though,” Blaine said, his tone deceptively dry. “I think maybe I should call the cops.”

“No,” Kurt said, switching the hand pressing the wad of towels around his nose so that he could catch Blaine’s sleeve. “No, don’t do that—you don’t need to do that.” He shook his head a little, then winced and wished he hadn’t. “He said something, I said something; he punched me in the face and then ran away when he saw how much I was bleeding. It’s over.” He squeezed his nose gently. “I’m pretty sure he didn’t break it.”

“Are you going to tell me who this mysterious ‘he’ is?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. Blaine’s face looked like a thundercloud. From this angle, a sideways thundercloud. “Nope.” It sounded like ‘dope’. “Just a garden-variety jerk. My school is full of them.”

Blaine’s eyes were so dark they were almost black. His hand on Kurt’s forehead was warm—there for just a second, and then gone. “I’m so sorry, Kurt.”

It was a palpable hit—more dizzying than being punched in the face. “I know you are.”

***

Kurt looked around. The gym might as well have been an alien planet, for how inhospitable it seemed. “Not to take the wind out of your sails, Blaine, but this doesn’t really seem like a very promising early Christmas present.”

“Just wait and see.” Blaine waved, smiled, and then the tallest woman Kurt had ever seen was walking towards them, wide and blocky in baggy gym shorts and a shapeless t-shirt. She actually looked incredibly scary until she smiled, then hugged Blaine and kissed him on the cheek. “Kurt, this is my friend, Shannon—Coach Beiste. She teaches boxing here at the gym. She was my coach. Now she’s yours. Merry early Christmas.”

Kurt swallowed. “Oh.” This was terrible. “You think I… you want me to learn to box?”

“I want you to be able to take care of yourself,” Blaine said quietly. “At least learn a little self-defense. Just in case you need it.”

“I don’t suppose…” he swallowed, and pushed himself to continue. “I mean, you know how to box. Couldn’t you teach me?”

“Blaine’s a big softie,” Coach Beiste said in a deep, mellow voice, and ruffled Blaine’s hair before wiping her hand on her shorts. “He’d work you for five minutes and then say ‘oh, your wrists hurt? Okay, here’s a scone’—and that’s about as much use as a pirate has for wallpaper.”

Kurt blinked, and wondered whether maybe Coach Beiste had taken one too many punches to the head. “I see.”

She stepped close to him and smiled again. It was a nice, if vaguely terrifying smile. “You’ll do okay, kid.”

Kurt tried to smile back.

***

“Kurt!” Blaine was wide-eyed, smiling, looking him over without missing a beat as he pulled shots. “How did it go yesterday?”

“My eyelashes hurt,” Kurt declared woefully, gripping his book-bag strap like it was the only thing keeping him upright. “Air molecules keep smacking me when I move. Someone snuck a bunch of new muscles into my body, and all of them are profoundly damaged.”

Blaine’s eyes softened, and he tilted his head. “Oh, Kurt—”

“But it turns out that punching things feels… kind of amazing. And I think I could get good at it.”

“Oh.” Blaine blinked. “So you’re… actually okay?”

Kurt sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just give me a damn sympathy scone and shut up.”

***

~ 2009 ~

The Grand Canyon was beautiful, breathtaking—and cataclysmically, staggeringly boring. He had a sneaking suspicion that his dad felt the same way, but was obscuring it in the name of their long-delayed Father/Son Bonding Vacation Experience—a theory which gained credence when they finally pulled up in front of the house, when his dad turned the car off and then just sat there, staring out the windshield, breathing.

Kurt cleared his throat. “Dad? You okay?”

His dad looked at him. Ruffled his hair. Sighed. “Next time, kid, you win—we’ll go to New York.”

He was still flying on that, his cheeks still stretched wide with the grin that felt like it threatened to split his face in half, when he biked over to Blaine’s house—because it had been like a hundred thousand years since he’d seen Blaine; they’d texted and called a few times but that was nothing, and he needed to see Blaine, tell Blaine everything so that it could be real—

Only it was a warm summer afternoon and Blaine had his sheers drawn but his windows open, and outside the front door Kurt’s opening salvo died in his throat when he realized that from the porch he could see right through Blaine’s windows, could see that Blaine was mostly naked on his couch, wearing just briefs with some guy half in his lap, kissing and touching, realized that he could actually hear quiet, happy-sounding noises and so he…

Ran.

Like.

Hell.

***

“Kurt?”

“Mmm?”

Blaine sat down across from him. “Is… everything okay? You’ve been… kind of quiet, since you got back.”

Kurt took a small, deliberate sip of his hot chocolate. “I’m fine.”

Blaine leaned back in his chair, looking at him, really looking—and something twisted in Kurt’s chest like a knife. “Okay. But you know—if you need to talk, I’m here, right?”

“I know that.” Knife or not, his voice was perfectly steady.

“Okay.” A beat, then two, and Blaine pulled back from the table and got halfway to his feet before he sank back down into his chair. “I just hope you know—I’m really glad you’re back. I missed you.”

Twist. Twist. Twist. Every beat of his heart seemed to twine it deeper. “I missed you too, Blaine.”

***

He chose Finn Hudson deliberately, intentionally—and disastrously, he was pretty sure, after the first two weeks of Project Crush were out of the way. But he was stubborn and determined and resourceful, and he didn’t let it matter that Finn was maybe not-so-bright and sometimes not-so-nice and always lamentably malleable to the will of his terrifying cheerleader girlfriend.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said to him quietly, appearing at his locker out of nowhere with real fire in her perfectly-mascaraed eyes.

“Oh?” She met his arched eyebrow with one of her own. It was… unfortunately impressive. “Do tell.”

“Stay away from my boyfriend,” was all she said, imperious and threatening, and then she sashayed off, her ponytail twitching back and forth like a shiny blonde metronome of disapproval. For the first time in Kurt’s entire life he kind of wished he liked girls that way, because Quinn Fabray in full badass mode was… kind of amazing.

***

“I’ve been flirting with a football player.”

Blaine tilted his head. “Really? You have gay football players at your school?”

Kurt sighed. “No.”

“Oh.” Blaine stopped wiping down the espresso machine, and carefully folded his towel. “That’s… maybe not such a great idea, Kurt.”

Kurt crossed his legs and leaned back on the counter. “Don’t give me that mother-hen look, Blaine—I’m pretty sure he’s too dim to notice, and too nice to beat me up.” He stared down at his boots, swinging, swinging. “Actually, my most stimulating conversations to-date have been with his girlfriend—she’s not dim at all.” He sniffed. “Or nice, for that matter.”

Blaine’s eyebrow went up, but his smile was soft. “Kurt Hummel—are you crushing on a girl?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “No. I think I’m just mooning over the idea of having someone to make bitchy comments at Real Housewives of Atlanta with.”

Blaine pouted. Just a little. “But… that’s what you have me for. Aren’t I enough for you any more?”

Kurt eyed him judiciously. “You could be bitchier.”

Blaine snorted.

“You could also try wearing a hot cheerleader outfit—”

“Kurt!”

Scandalizing Blaine. Best hobby ever.

***

He was out of breath. Dizzy. His hands were shaking, and when he pulled the Lima Bean door open and ducked inside, he almost mowed down two girls who were making their way out loaded down with mall bags and to-go cups. He didn’t even really notice.

Blaine spotted him at once, his brows drawing low in concern. He had a quick word with Wes, the new kid on the afternoon shift, and once Wes took over he waved Kurt in towards the back room, untying his apron as he went.

“What happened?”

“I’m… I… oh Jesus.”

Blaine sat him down behind the tiny desk, hands on his shoulders, then gave him a bottle of water from a flat on one of the standing shelves. It was room temperature and tasted faintly of plastic, and Kurt managed three swallows before his breathing ratcheted up to high again.

“Kurt—what is it? Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you? Should I call your dad—”

“No.” He swallowed. “I’m fine. I just… well, the football player—Finn—that whole thing kind of… um.” He took a breath. “I kind of set my dad up with Finn’s mom, and then Finn and my dad started doing all these ‘guy things’ together and I was… I was so angry and I… I came out. To my dad. I told him.”

Blaine was there, right there, down on his knees just inches away, hands warm on Kurt’s biceps even through his jacket, his face careful and set. “Did he… how did it… did he take it badly?”

“No—” he thought he was done crying, thought he’d gotten it all out of him when his dad wrapped him up in his arms, but apparently not. “No, not at all, he was… he was great.” His breath was hitching, seizing up in his throat. “Just told me he knew, and that he loved me—” that was as much as he could say, relief cresting somewhere over the top of his heart as Blaine pulled him close, rocked him. “He knows, and he loves me. Blaine—”

Blaine held him for a long time, let him cry it out. “I’m so glad,” was the first thing he heard Blaine whisper when his hearing crept back. “So glad, Kurt—I’m so glad for you.”

Blaine’s eyes were too-bright when he finally pulled back, welling but not quite spilling over, his face flushed and vulnerable and so, so beautiful—and subtly pained, just faintly drawn as if in the grip of an old ghost that had never quite stopped haunting him. Kurt swallowed. “Your dad… didn’t take it so well, did he—when you told him?”

Blaine breathed out roughly, smiling faintly, shaking his head until the pain vanished from his face. “Doesn’t matter,” Blaine said firmly, and leaned forward, kissing Kurt’s forehead just once, chastely, making Kurt’s already-raw heart pound like fury in his chest. “My dad doesn’t matter. Your dad is awesome, and he loves you, and there’ll be a celebratory hot chocolate for you out at the counter, when you’re ready for it.”

Blaine stood up, and Kurt leaned back in the small desk chair and craned his neck up to look at him—and oh, he was going to have to be careful, as wrung-out and relieved as he was, because all kinds of true and deeply treacherous things wanted to spill out of his mouth right now, and the very last thing he wanted was to make that look on Blaine’s face (that fond, kind, happy look, the one that was all for him) vanish.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said quietly, and Blaine nodded, and smiled at him one last time, and walked out.

***

“So… wait a minute. That guy, Finn—your football-player crush—is going to be your stepbrother?”

“So it seems,” Kurt said dryly, flipping another page in Premier Bride. He squinted. “What do you think of cognac and russet? Too trendy?”

Blaine sat down across from him. “Is that… I mean. Kurt. Are you going to be okay?”

“Fine,” he said tersely, then sighed at the look Blaine gave him, and closed the magazine. “I mean it, Blaine—I’m fine. Finn’s not… it never would have been, he never would have been my boyfriend. But I think he’ll be a decent stepbrother.” He opened the magazine again. “Plus, I have excellent inside dish on how to push him around, thanks to my close scrutiny of his girlfriend’s methods.”

Blaine leaned his head on his hand, smiling. “You’re kind of terrifying, you know that?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “You love it.”

Blaine nodded happily. “I do.”

***

~ 2010 ~

“Kurt.”

“Yes?”

Blaine’s face was solemn, serious. “Take off your boots.”

Why was the first question that sprang to mind, but Blaine looked… too grave for that. “Um. Here? Now?”

“Yes.”

Blaine went back to the counter, and Kurt slowly worked himself out of his twenty-hole Docs, then stared at Blaine while he handled a short rush of customers. He slid out of the booth when Blaine waved him up, his feet feeling oddly vulnerable just in his dress socks.

“What the hell is going on?” To his relief he sounded… curious, mildly irritated, nothing more, nothing at all to indicate the crazy, swooping feeling in his stomach when Blaine came close, closer than he usually did, and put his hands on Kurt’s shoulders.

“I thought so.”

“You thought… what?”

“You’re as tall as me,” Blaine said, and Kurt swallowed and it was an abrupt and sudden shock, to realize it was true—they were eye-to-eye, standing nearly toe-to-toe, perfectly of a height and if Blaine were to kiss him, if they were to… oh, if they…

“Oh.” Kurt swallowed again. “I guess I am.”

Blaine let go of him, turned to the counter behind him, and presented Kurt almost ceremoniously with an oversized ceramic cup. “Congratulations.”

Kurt blinked, and tried not to sway. “Uh… what?”

“It’s a mocha,” Blaine said solemnly, putting the cup into his hands. “I am officially upgrading you to real coffee, now that I am no longer afraid of stunting your growth. Or, now that I’m in favor of stunting your growth, because my fragile ego won’t be able to handle you winding up a foot taller than me.”

Oh dear God. “Blaine.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Big eyes. Fluttering lashes. Absolutely ridiculous, reaching out. “Does that mean you don’t want the mocha?”

“The mocha is mine,” Kurt snapped, pulling the cup close to him, halfway turning to shield it with his body. “But if I can’t sleep tonight, I’m calling you and telling you absolutely every detail of my Lima Bean decoration plan for Valentine’s Day.”

“It’s a deal.”

***

“Okay.” Blaine sank into the chair across from him, wiping his hands on a towel. “What is it?”

“What’s what?”

“You haven’t been… you’ve been quiet, all night. That’s not like you. So either you’re plotting world domination, or—”

“I’m always plotting world domination, Blaine—”

“I know—but you’re usually a lot more talkative about it. So what’s going on?”

Kurt’s stomach quietly folded in on itself. “Nothing, I just… it’s my dad.” Kurt’s hands curled into soft fists on either side of his geometry book. “He just… he decided to give me ‘the talk’.”

“Oh.”

“And it was horrible and embarrassing and awful and just… awful.”

“Oh.”

“And I just can’t imagine what would have made him do that with me when I’m… I mean, when I’ve never, I haven’t ever…”

“Uh.” Blaine was slightly flushed, his cheeks pink. “I think… I think that it might have been… because of me.”

Kurt’s head snapped up, and his eyes widened. “What?”

“Um.”

“Because… of you? Why would he… Blaine—” his heart, his heart was out of control, it was—

“I went to see him, a few days ago, at the shop,” Blaine said quietly, creasing his folded towel. “And I might have suggested that he talk to you.”

“What?” That was cold water, a sudden drop, nearly sickeningly abrupt. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re growing up,” Blaine said, looking calm as ever, as calm and as kind—and as tender-but-not-in-that-way as ever. “You’re fifteen, and incredibly sophisticated for your age, and I just don’t want you to get hurt and so I—”

“You told my dad to talk to me?” Kurt fought to keep his voice steady, to not show how much that felt like… like some kind of betrayal. “Blaine, that… it was so embarrassing—”

“Well, I’m sorry, Kurt—but you’re so mature most of the time, and I remember what it was like for me when I was fifteen, when I didn’t have anything except curiosity and a whole lot of shame and not a single person to talk about it with, and so I ended up in some situations that, um, maybe I could have avoided, if someone had just talked to me—”

“You could have talked to me.” He spat it out, heavy and accusatory and there, and his throat felt scraped after he’d said it.

“I… well. Yes, I guess I could have.” Blaine blinked, slowly. “But Kurt, we’re friends—”

“Yes—you’re my friend, my much-older friend who’s got a whole hell of a lot more experience than me, my friend who might remember what it’s like be basically tortured during every waking moment, wondering what it feels like to kiss a guy—or if you ever even will—” He was choking, there was really no reason for him to be so angry but he couldn’t stop. He slammed his book shut.

“Of course you will, Kurt,” Blaine said, and the calm in his face told Kurt precisely the extent to which Blaine didn’t get it, and that hurt, stung like a crossed wire deep in his heart. “When you’re ready, when you find the right guy, you will—”

“I’ve already found him,” Kurt said bitterly, and had to put a hand to his chest, clenching his jaw and trying not to let the tears that threatened spill down his cheeks. “I’ve found him—and it won’t work. It won’t ever work—”

“I know—about Finn—and I’m so sorry—”

He was up from his table before he knew he meant to move, stuffing books and papers and stray pencils into his book-bag carelessly, frantically. “I have to go.”

He ignored Blaine calling after him, ignored Blaine calling to him from the doorway of the Lima Bean, ignored the curious-spurious glances of the people walking by.

And that night, when his phone buzzed and Blaine’s smiling, handsome, stupid face lit up the screen, he just turned it off.

***

He stayed away from the Lima Bean, stayed away from Blaine. He spent a lot of time at the gym, pounding the heavy bag until his wrists and shoulders ached, until the muscles in his back felt like they were going to tear free of their moorings. He spent a lot of time trying to find a place to do his homework that didn’t feel strange and uncomfortable. He spent a lot of time just lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, trying not to miss Blaine, trying to forget.

He wasn’t successful.

Until, suddenly, due to circumstances very much beyond his control, he was.

***

His skin was still crackling, still stinging-burning with the heavy pulse of his anger as he paced his father’s now-thankfully-deserted hospital room, staring down at his boots so he wouldn’t have to look at the tubes and the equipment and the terrible slackness of his dad’s dearly-loved face, his dad there but not-there. He didn’t look and didn’t look, but no matter how mad he was (and he was furious) there just wasn’t enough anger to hold all the panic and the fear and the regret at bay—not forever. He could pace, and be furious, and mutter under his breath, but he just wasn’t going to be able to not-hear the beep and thump and wheeze of the machines—

He whirled when the door opened, acid and barbs ready on the tip of his tongue—but it was Blaine, Blaine from out of nowhere, Blaine with his face drawn and grave, his wide eyes taking in Kurt, taking in everything—and Kurt didn’t even think about it, he just went; went into Blaine’s open arms and let himself be held.

“Kurt. I’m so, so sorry—I just heard—”

“Blaine.” That was all he could manage, because fury was better than crying but all the fury just leached away like nothing, evaporated, and underneath it and in Blaine’s arms all he could feel was the wound in him, the terror. “Blaine, I’m not ready—I’m not… I can’t lose him. I can’t.”

It was a long, lost, near-silent time, crying while Blaine held him, taking what was offered because he couldn’t bring himself to turn away from it. Blaine was quiet, sniffing a little, pressing a handkerchief into his hand but then just holding him, letting him do what he needed to do. Kurt cried himself quiet, and when he finally opened his eyes he could look—now he could look, over Blaine’s shoulder at his dad, breathing, barely breathing, but there.

He let go of Blaine and went to his dad’s bedside and sat, reaching for his dad’s still, cool hand.

Blaine pulled up a chair and settled in next to him. “Is there… what can I do?”

“I… nothing. Wait. All I can do now is wait.”

“Okay.” He heard Blaine take a breath. “Can I wait with you?”

“Yeah. Yes.” He licked his lips, and swallowed. “Blaine, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I got so angry—”

“Kurt.” A warm touch on his shoulder, there, then gone. “No. Just… don’t worry about that, okay? Not right now. We can talk about it later, if you want.”

His lips twisted, and he sniffed. “Or… not?”

“Or not.”

“Okay.”

***

“She’s trying.” Strange, that it was easier to talk to Blaine without looking at him, easier to say what was true while he was staring at his dad’s slack face. “Carole’s trying so hard, but—it’s still… she’s still new to me, you know, and all it does is make me think about how I don’t have a mom, makes me wonder what my life is going to look like if… you know.”

This was it, this was the moment when Blaine would say something about how he shouldn’t think like that, shouldn’t give up hope—or should pray.

But Blaine didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all, and Kurt risked a glance over at him. Blaine’s eyes were warm and wide—concerned for him, but not in the way the others had been, the way that made him feel like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. Kurt felt a tense ache in the pit of his stomach—just one of many—unknot itself, and his stupid eyes started leaking again.

“Do you want to stay with me for a few days?” Blaine asked quietly. “I have a guest room, if you feel like… if it would be easier for you to be away—”

“Oh.” That wasn’t what he’d expected. Not at all. And even though he knew Blaine didn’t mean it the way he wished Blaine could have meant it—still. Blaine meant it. Kurt took a hitching breath. “I don’t… are you sure I wouldn’t be, uh, cramping your style?”

Blaine smiled at him, a gentle smile, and brushed a lock of hair back from Kurt’s forehead. “I can pretty much guarantee you that at the present juncture, I have no style to cramp. I’m style-free.”

“Oh.” He wiped his eyes with one hand, and squeezed his dad’s fingers with the other. “Well, I suppose I could bring some with me.”

***

He’d entertained a million scenarios (fantasies was perhaps a more fitting word, but for his own peace of mind it was probably better to think of them as scenarios) about what living with Blaine might be like, but the reality of it was entirely different—of course, given the situation, of course it was. It was… quiet, he was quiet, and Blaine matched him in silence—silence he hadn’t known he desperately needed until he had it.

They took turns cooking, and every night after dinner (late, due to Blaine’s work hours and his own visits to the hospital) Blaine would put on old movies and settle down in the living room, and Kurt would start out at the other end of the couch but slowly he’d curl up, tilt over until his head was just touching Blaine’s leg, and Blaine’s hand would settle on his shoulder and Kurt would close his eyes and just… breathe.

He expanded, in those moments, unbuckling himself internally from what felt like the weight of the world, and floated in the quiet and dark—still scared, still hurting, and still loving Blaine in a way he knew he probably shouldn’t—but distantly, safely, resting in a caesura of between-things; aching, but whole.

Blaine came to the hospital every night after he closed up shop, and mostly they were quiet but sometimes Kurt talked—about his dad, a fraught topic, but perhaps the safest one under the circumstances, and Blaine laughed with him and listened to him and finally suggested that they sing together, and it was while the two of them were harmonizing on a slowed-down, hushed version of Mellencamp’s Lonely Ol’ Night that his dad’s fingers suddenly twitched in his hand, choking him off and rendering him momentarily mute, open-mouthed and shaking his head and staring down with his heart going crazy in his chest while his dad’s eyelids fluttered, fluttered, and slowly opened.

“Dad?”

“Kurt?” His dad sounded like a rusty door, if it could talk. “Were you singing Mellencamp?”

Kurt burst into tears.

***

Blaine’s hands holding his were warm and strong and certain, Blaine’s eyes looking deeply into his held a universe, wide and solemn with the weight of the moment.

“You understand the depth of my respect for your father’s well-being, right?”

“Yes. I—”

“My respect. For him. For his health. It’s huge.”

“I know that, Blaine. Just—”

“Huge. Deep. Profound.”

Kurt squeezed Blaine’s hands. “Yes-yes-yes—huge. Deep. Profound. I know that. It’s why you’re doing this, and he’s not. Now shut up and hand over the keys.”

Blaine handed over the keys with the air of someone resigned to their fate, and Kurt didn’t even try to suppress a high-pitched squeal of excitement as he jammed the key into the ignition, and turned it.

“Huge, huge respect,” Blaine mumbled, words mostly lost under the roar of the engine. “Oh my God you don’t have to gun it, Kurt—you have a learner’s permit; we are not drag-racing—”

That was about how long it took Kurt to find first gear and take his foot off the clutch, so the rest of whatever Blaine was babbling about was kind of… lost, a not-unpleasant, background, high-pitched stream of words that didn’t make a whole lot of sense—Kurt caught ‘residential area!’ and ‘four-way stop!’ and ‘oh dear God pedestrians, Kurt!’, but mostly he just let it wash over him, unable to stop smiling.

“This is awesome!” It was a spontaneous utterance, entirely free of sarcasm, unabashedly joyful.

“…we’re going to die…”

“Oh, hush, Blaine—we’re not going to die—I am in complete control of this vehicle, I’m—whoops, sorry, okay, no, we’re okay now—I’m doing great. You should be a better driving instructor and tell me that I’m doing great.”

“Kurt, you are unquestionably—onewaystreetKurt—”

“I know, okay?” Really. Blaine was such a fuddy-duddy sometimes. “You’re a fuddy-duddy, Blaine.”

“I’m… how do you even know that term? You’re fifteen, how do—oh, hell—brakes, brakes—”

“I see it, I see it—you need to mellow out, Blaine; you’ll give yourself grey hair from the stress.”

“I confidently expect to resemble Anderson Cooper by the time this lesson is over—wait, why are you—wait, this goes downtown, why are you going downtown—we shouldn’t go downtown—”

“Of course we should—we can drive by cute boys, and whistle and yell things—”

“Kurt!”

***

~ 2011 ~

“This is incomprehensible. It cannot be comprehended. It defies comprehension.”

Blaine sat down across from him, flip-folding the towel he’d been wiping down tables with. “What’s incomprehensible?”

Kurt shoved his Algebra II homework sheet across the table. It was only one problem, but upside-down it looked like a spilled bowl of angry, mutated alphabet soup—which was pretty much exactly how it looked right-side up.

Blaine frowned down at it for a few seconds, then glanced up at him with a smirk. “Is your math teacher a geek?”

Kurt blinked. “He’s a high-school math teacher. Of course he’s a geek. Why?”

“Because the answer is forty-two.”

Kurt whipped the sheet back around. “Really?”

“Yes.”

He made a note. Then another note. “And how did you… um—”

“You’ll need to show your own work,” Blaine said with a wink, then got up and headed back towards the counter, the smug math-knowing bastard.

Kurt struggled with it for five more minutes before he gave up. “Were you a math whiz in school?” he asked, hopping up onto the counter in his accustomed spot. It didn’t take much of a hop any more.

“I wasn’t really any kind of a whiz in school,” Blaine said absently, stacking cups. “I got by, that’s all.”

It was a note, subtle and casual, a tone of Blaine’s voice he’d only recently learned to read. He looked up, but there were only a few patrons at this hour, most of them clustered at the tables over by the window. He chose his words carefully. “Where did you go? To college, I mean.”

Blaine’s mouth twisted, just a little. “Harvard. MBA.”

“You have an MBA from Harvard?” He tried to keep the shock out of his own voice, but he wasn’t entirely successful. “Blaine, you run a coffee shop in Lima, Ohio.”

Blaine glanced at him then, just briefly, his hands never slowing as they stacked, rearranged, tidied. “Yes.”

Kurt waited. He’d learned to wait. It hadn’t been the easiest thing to learn, but he’d applied himself—when it came to Blaine, anyway.

“I was given a choice,” Blaine said quietly, finally, arranging things to his satisfaction and then leaning back against the wall, his arms folded, his face set. “Medicine, law, or business. I chose business.”

“But it wasn’t what you wanted to do?”

“No.”

Kurt stopped swinging his feet. “What did you want to do?”

“I wanted…” A shrug, and Blaine looked suddenly, oddly, younger than he was. “I wanted to do a whole lot of things that turned out to be not part of the program. I wanted to, uh… I wanted to get away, mostly—New York. Was what I wanted.”

“So why didn’t you take your MBA there? You could have—”

“Kurt.” A subtle pain, an old pain. “I just… didn’t.”

Kurt went back to waiting. Blaine served two women who came in for cappuccinos-to-go. Outside dusk was falling, slanting grey-gold through the windows. Blaine wiped down the espresso machine, and then cleared his throat.

“My father’s expectations—five years, was what he said. That I get my degree and I work in business for five years, and then I could… do whatever.”

“No reduced sentence for good behavior?” Kurt asked, then bit the inside of his cheek—but Blaine just gave him one of those smiles that was not-quite a grimace.

“I didn’t exactly take it well. In fact, I took it very badly—which is why I opened this place.”

“This place—the Lima Bean—this is… just to piss off your dad?”

“Not the most mature move I’ve ever made,” Blaine admitted quietly, shrugging again. “But as I understand it, being a seriously overeducated barista is something all the cool kids do these days.”

There was a chill, a small cold spot in the pit of his stomach that warned him not to say any more—but he couldn’t help it. “So after five years, you’re free?”

“That was the deal.”

“How…” he had to stop to lick his lips. “When…” Ridiculous—he couldn’t even ask.

Blaine looked at him, and smiled again—his real smile. “Two years.”

Kurt blinked. “You’ve got two years to go? But you’ve… I mean—”

“No, I mean—my five years were up, two years ago. Two years ago this month, actually.”

“Oh.” He was buzzing, warm—like he’d just slammed a mocha. “You’re still here.”

Blaine tilted his head. “I am.”

Kurt swallowed. “I’m glad.”

Blaine reached out and nudged his shoulder, gently. “Go do your math homework.”

“Okay.”

***

“Well, fuck.”

Kurt’s head snapped up. Blaine was frowning down at his phone, sitting at the one table he hadn’t bussed yet, tugging absently at his hair—as much a breach of protocol as the swearing was (in front of him, anyway—sometimes he mused over the possibility that Blaine swore like a sailor every moment that he wasn’t Kurt-adjacent). “What happened?”

Blaine straightened abruptly, and his cheeks went pink—obviously he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. “Um… oh. Nothing. It’s my… sorry. Forgive me, Kurt.”

“I have heard the word ‘fuck’ before, Blaine,” Kurt said dryly, folding his hands across his open textbook. Blaine looked momentarily stern, but Kurt just arched an eyebrow. “It’s not like you’ve violated my virgin ears.”

Blaine’s mouth twitched. “Really?”

“Really.”

Another twitch. “Kurt Hummel, teenage degenerate—”

“I’m a rebel and I’ll never-ever be any good,” Kurt agreed calmly. “But that won’t get you out of this. What happened?”

Blaine got to his feet with a sigh, and then sank down with another one when he reached Kurt’s table. “My annual pilgrimage has hit a snag.”

“Your annual…”

“Every year for Christmas my mom gives me tickets to Opera Cleveland—okay, look, yes, the boarding-school thing takes over, sometimes—”

“You go to the opera?”

“I’m very cultured,” Blaine sniffed dismissively, looking very much like a haughty overgrown prep-school scion. “I own a suit and everything.”

Kurt snorted. “You mean you don’t go full Armani tux? Were you raised by wolves?”

Blaine’s brows lowered. “I can and will secretly switch you to decaf, you know—I have that power.”

“You and your megalomaniacal caffeine-based dictatorship hold no fear for me, Blaine Anderson. I can pull my own shots.”

“And yet, you don’t.”

“It tastes better when you do it.” He flipped his textbook closed. He wasn’t having any luck wrapping his brain around South American allocation of resources anyway. “So—what happened? No tickets?”

Blaine shook his head. “No, I got the tickets. But my… I mean, the person I had planned to go with—”

“Not your mom?”

Blaine’s cheek twitched. “God no—she hates the opera. She gives me tickets because I guess, in her world, that’s the appropriate gift for a gay son.” He shrugged, grinned. “That’s fine with me—it’s infinitely preferable to monster truck rally tickets, which is probably what my dad would choose.”

Kurt pressed his lips together. It was necessary. When he was done, he cleared his throat. “So, the person you were going to go with, your… date?”

“Yeah. Or. Kind of. Boyfriend, I thought, but—I guess not.”

His next breath ached. It ached deep. “Boyfriend?”

Blaine rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess he wasn’t, really, since he just replied to my text about the tickets by telling me he thinks going to the opera with me is too much like actually dating.”

“Oh.” Everything in him seemed precariously balanced, centered just-so. He was careful not to move much. “Sorry.” He swallowed. “Are you okay?”

Blaine appeared to think that over. “You know what? I actually am. I think…” He smiled again, ruefully, shaking his head. “I think I’m kind of relieved.”

Relieved. “Relieved?”

“Yeah. It’s… um. Complicated. I… liked him—I mean, of course I did, but it was, it wasn’t… we were just kind of… there.” Blaine looked at him, and Kurt schooled his expression to remain neutral. “It was okay. It was nice. It was, um, convenient—”

“Convenient.”

“I’m—look, I’m not really very good at… that sounds really, um, bad, and it—”

“It’s hardly the palpitations of breathless romance, no.” He snapped his mouth shut, but he’d already said it—but Blaine just chuckled and leaned his head on his fist, tilting his head, his eyes bright. He was blushing.

“Just between you and me, I’m not so hot at romance. Breathless and palpitating or otherwise.”

Oh. “Oh.” But Blaine was leaning on his hand and smiling fondly and blushing like that and it was impossible—flatly impossible—to believe him, impossible to look away from his deep, dark, lovely eyes, impossible for Kurt not to feel something at the core of himself, something he was so careful to keep safe, cool and protected, melting in the romantic glow of Blaine, smiling and telling him secrets. “Maybe you just haven’t found the right guy yet.” His lips went numb saying it, and he felt dizzy.

“A pox upon you and your unbridled optimism,” Blaine said mildly, grinning, then tapped one finger on the table. “Speaking of unbridled—didn’t you say you have a proposed budget for your annual Lima Bean Holiday Extravaganza?”

Kurt swallowed, glanced down at his closed Economics textbook, and forcibly shifted gears. “Oh, I do. But I’ve got more than that, this year—I’ve got sketches.”

“Sketches?”

“And layouts.”

“Really.”

“And sample boards.”

Blaine’s eyes were brilliant. “Sample… is that really necessary?”

“Given that I have decided that this is the year I want you not to laugh derisively when you read my budget—yes, I think it is,” Kurt replied primly, and pulled a thick portfolio out of his book bag.

Blaine was smiling. He looked so happy. He looked so… warm. “Dazzle me, Mr. Hummel.”

Kurt swallowed, smiled, and opened his portfolio.

***

“They’re good when they’re cool,” Blaine said, bringing a brimming bowl over to the kitchen island where Kurt was perched on a tall stool. “But I like them best when they’re still warm—here. Tell me what you think?”

Kurt took a praline from the bowl, chewed, and swallowed. Then he got up and went to the ceramic pitcher where Blaine stored his utensils and selected a large, wooden spoon.

Blaine blinked quizzically when Kurt pressed it into his hand. “What’s this for?”

“I’m eating ten more of these,” Kurt said, selecting another praline. “And then I want you to hit me with that until I stop.”

Blaine’s eyebrows rose. “Good, then? Should I sell them at the Bean for the holiday season?”

“Yes,” Kurt said with his mouth full. “But keep the spoon handy when I’m near the counter, okay?”

Blaine grinned, and tapped him gently on the head with the spoon. “The secret ingredient is bourbon.”

“I was going to guess crack, but okay,” Kurt managed, and then leaned forward and yanked the spoon away. “I’ve changed my mind—I’ll stop eating when they’re gone.” He picked up the bowl and slipped off the stool, heading towards the living room. “Come on—these are perfect for Dance Moms—far too good for me to throw at the screen.”

“I keep forgetting to ask you,” Blaine said distractedly, pushing buttons and scrolling through his hilarious and terrifying DVR archive. “Would you like to go to the opera with me? It’s La Boheme.”

Kurt swallowed before he was ready to, and almost choked. “What?”

“You know, I told you—my mom gave me tickets, and it’s next weekend, and I thought you might want to—hey. Are you okay?”

“m’fine,” Kurt said, and hastily sipped some water. “Cinnamon.” He sipped again, then set his glass, along with the bowl of nuts, firmly down on the coffee table. “You’re inviting me to go to the opera with you?”

“I know—you probably think it’s boring as hell—but hey, there’ll be all kinds of crazy, overdressed old people carrying on… the dowager-philanthropist contingent alone would make great reality television—”

“I would love to go,” he said calmly, and then folded his hands together and tucked them between his knees, because they were shaking. “I would… I would be delighted.”

“Wonderful,” Blaine said, smiling, and nabbed a handful of pralines before he leaned back. “We’ll have fun.”

***

His clothes went on like armor, carefully fitted and braced piece by piece, layers of cotton-poplin and fine-mesh wool and stiff brocade until he was smooth, shiny-smooth all over, and in the mirror the cut and drape were perfect, and in the mirror his hair was perfect, and in the mirror his face was cool, composed, calm. Inside his skin it was the same, it stayed the same until the first notes of the overture—that was a crack, a fissure, an unsuspected and insidious rupture right at the hinge that was holding him together. The music washed in and Kurt gasped a little and Blaine was there, right there, right next to him and smiling, kind and smiling and happy—and desperately, damagingly beautiful. Blaine touched him, just once: casually and easily with a light, glad brush across the back of his hand like it was nothing, in through the layers and touching him, skin-to-skin contact without ever knowing how his heart was going at a gallop, how the core of him was being slowly stripped bare.

***

By intermission Blaine was loose-limbed, flushed and relaxed and heavy-eyed in a way that Kurt was sure had nothing to do with the one slender flute of champagne he held when he brought Kurt his cranberry-and-soda—it was the music, Kurt knew, the voices and the story and the songs—and he knew because it was the same for him, just the same, and he drank fast to cool his hot face, to steady his spinning head.

“That was what I wanted to do,” Blaine told him, so quietly it could barely be heard over the crush and murmur of the crowd around them—an admission, it seemed, from his lowered eyes and glowing cheeks.

Kurt leaned in. A little. “What—contract a wasting disease in Paris, or sing opera?”

Blaine closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. “I… wanted to sing. Dance. Write. Paint. Sculpt. Film—all of it.” He opened his eyes then, and they were brilliant, reflecting all the golden light in the room. “I wanted to live in a city of artists; I wanted to create with them and for them and for myself, I wanted to try everything and find what I loved best and go as deep-down into it as I could and just… that. That was what I wanted.”

Too close. Everything was too close to the surface, and Blaine was too close to him, and Kurt wanted—needed—to reach out and touch him… he squeezed the stem of his glass instead. “Oh. You… Blaine. You still could—can. You still can.”

Blaine was shaking his head, staring over Kurt’s shoulder into the distance, smiling that smile that always twisted Kurt’s heart, the one that hurt. “No. Not… it’s not for me. But you—Kurt, I told you because I want you to know—keep going. Whatever it is, whatever it turns out to be, that you want, you—don’t let anyone stop you, okay? Don’t let anyone stop you.”

“Okay.” It felt like a promise, and Blaine’s dark eyes on him felt like a vow, and he had to swallow, twice, rapidly, and despite the bittersweet tang of cranberry, his mouth was dry. “Okay, Blaine.”

A crack in his armor, irrevocable and irreparable, and when he started crying halfway through act three Blaine pressed a handkerchief into his hand—looking at him, Blaine was looking at him, and he couldn’t look back, but he squeezed Blaine’s hand and held—Blaine’s hand warm and steady around his, holding his, surrounding him and holding him and there, there, there until Blaine drew back, slowly, until Blaine withdrew and left him with the handkerchief and the heavy, scorching weight of Blaine’s eyes on him, on nothing else but him, there for a while, and then gone.

***

He opened his eyes, and the melodies from last night were still floating through his head, and things were different. It was late, he’d slept late, and there was brilliant winter sunlight coming in through his window, the tops of the trees outside bare and lovely in the frigid cold—and things were different. Blaine. Had said good-night to him calmly and quietly and let him go, but there had been something between them—something that hadn’t been there before. An unknown something, but Kurt stretched under the warmth of his soft duvet and shivered and he could still feel it, it was still there—like Christmas morning, the sense of something long-awaited and deeply-anticipated and achingly wonderful, waiting for him to open his eyes and join the day and discover… everything.

He groomed and dressed himself with more than his usual care, and the Lima Bean was so warm when he pushed the door open; some excuse for the high wash of heat he could feel in his cheeks. Blaine was behind the counter, helping a long line of customers and smiling broadly, talking a mile a minute in several different directions—and he lit up when he spotted Kurt, there was no other way to put it, and by the time Kurt put his bag down on his customary corner table Blaine was out from behind the counter and headed right for him, smiling and winter-morning gorgeous and… taking his apron off?

“Hey,” Blaine said quietly, like it was just the two of them, like there wasn’t a long line of disgruntled-looking customers peering over his shoulder. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

“Fine, I… Blaine? What’s going on?”

“I need to do a, um, an emergency milk run—my last delivery was short. There’s a new kid working the counter—I just hired him this morning, actually. Think you could step in and show him the ropes until I get back?”

Oh. “Oh. I… sure. Fine.” He kept his voice cool, and raised an eyebrow. “What’s the pay rate for managers, anyway?”

Blaine rolled his eyes. “Hard-bargain Hummel strikes again—okay. Of course. Manager pay rate plus the streusel muffin training bonus—it’s all yours.” Blaine tugged him towards the counter, and there were a few whirlwind seconds of getting into a clean apron and running an eye over the stock before Blaine was pushing him toward a shellshocked-looking blond boy with thick-rimmed glasses. “Kurt, this is Chandler. Chandler, this is Kurt—he’ll take it from here.”

It was just a little drop, just a faint drop in his stomach when Blaine waved a cheery good-bye, but then his instincts kicked in and got him working through the rush of customers, walking Chandler through as much as he had time for. But eventually the line was gone and the roar in his ears had dimmed to a murmur, and Chandler was just… there, staring at him wide-eyed and smiling nervously. “Um. You okay?”

“I’m great,” Chandler said rapidly, his cheeks turning pink. “I just… it’s a lot to learn but you’re a great teacher and I didn’t… I didn’t think it would be you, teaching me—I mean, I know you fill in here, I’ve seen you—”

“You have?”

“Of course—you’re Kurt, that’s your table, over in the corner, you study here, usually, I know—not that I’ve been stalking you or anything, I just… I noticed you, because your, because of your, um, clothes—you have the most beautiful clothes, your taste is amazing—”

“Oh. I. Thanks.” His stomach took another dip. “So… you decided to apply here?”

“Yeah, that—was just crazy, I came in this morning and Blaine was telling the lady ahead of me in line that the girl he’d hired hadn’t shown up for her shift this morning, and I just… decided to apply, I mean, I thought I might as well, I spend a lot of time here anyway because… so anyway, I asked for an application, and he looked me over and then hired me on the spot. Crazy, huh?”

“Crazy,” Kurt agreed absently, and turned back to help two new customers who had just come in, and his voice was steady and his hands were steady, but his stomach was falling, falling, falling.

***

He and Chandler almost-kissed on their first date. They almost-almost-kissed on their second date. And after that there seemed to be kind of a curse on it, on the whole kissing thing, and at random moments he would look up or look over and see Chandler staring at his mouth and he knew—and he would blush, and Chandler would blush, and he could have, maybe, done something about it—but he didn’t.

“You just don’t get it,” Chandler told him at the end of their ninth date, rain outside the car falling and casting shadow-streaks on his pinched, pained face—shadow-streaks, and real ones, too, and Kurt felt terrible, absolutely terrible—“You don’t know what it’s like, to be so in love with someone who, who just… who doesn’t feel—”

“Chandler, I’m sorry,” he said, and he was—he really was, because Chandler was hilarious and weird and fun to be around, and if things had been different he might have—probably would have—“I’m sorry, I—I really like you—”

“I know,” Chandler said, barely audible because he was really crying now, crying hard. “I know you do, that’s what sucks, what makes this so hard, because I keep thinking, maybe, if I wait, you’ll just… but you’re not going to.” He shook his head, wiping his cheeks with the backs of his hands. “You never will.”

Chandler was gone, out of the car and into the rain and slipping up the flagstones leading to his house, and Kurt could have gone after him, could have caught him there by the front door, the two of them drenched and soggy and crying—he could see it, perfectly clearly—and he could have taken Chandler by his wet face and kissed his unhappy mouth and pulled him close—

But in the end, he just watched Chandler fumble with his keys and let himself into the house with only one agonized glance back over his shoulder, and then he leaned across the passenger seat and tugged the car door closed, and drove away.

***

The Lima Bean was quiet the next morning, the rain still pouring down outside. Blaine seemed to be moving slower than usual, restocking, cleaning, finally tossing his towel down on the counter and coming over to Kurt’s table, sitting down across from him with a sigh.

“Chandler quit,” he said, his voice low.

“I know. I mean—I thought he might. We broke up last night.”

Blaine nodded, looked away, looked back. “I’m sorry. I really… I hoped you guys would work out.”

I couldn’t tell from the way you shoved us at each other was what wanted to come out of his mouth, but he just shrugged. “I know you did.”

Blaine reached for his hand—Kurt saw him, he did—but then he pulled back, lacing his fingers together. “Are you okay?”

You just don’t get it. You don’t know what it’s like. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

Blaine tilted his head. “Want a mocha?”

“Okay.”

***

~ 2012 ~

“I swear—it’s all he thinks about, all he talks about—Mister One-Track Mind—seriously. Blaine, stop smirking.”

“I’m not smirking. I’m smiling.”

“Well then, stop smiling.” Kurt sniffed. “I’m unburdening my woes to you, here—smiling is unseemly.”

Blaine shrugged, leaning his head on his hand across the table, still smiling. “Normally, sure—but it’s roguishly charming when I do it.”

“Oh, you’re insufferable—both of you. You, and my father—I have tarred you with the same brush of insufferability.”

“That’s not really a word,” Blaine drawled. “And college is important, Kurt.”

“Of course college is important—I’m not an idiot, Blaine—although I kind of wish I was at this point, since then my dad might tone down the college crusade. Honestly—he’s got brochures all over the house. I find them next to my plate when I come down for breakfast, leaning on my pillow when I go to bed at night—he put a row of them in front of my skin care products, for God’s sake—”

“Anything look good to you?”

“Ooh, yes, actually, there’s a program at—no, wait, Blaine—no. You are not sucking me into the whole let’s-fantasize-about-college discussion—”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.” Arched eyebrow, sly smile, God he was so handsome.

Kurt looked down at the table and swirled his mocha. “I mean… there’s a lot of things I could… I just… I’m not sure. Which way I want to go. What I want to do most. And it feels… I don’t know how to make that decision now, halfway through my senior year. Without… I just don’t know. Not for sure.”

“If it’s any consolation to you, I don’t think many people know for sure, at your age.”

Kurt looked up. “That’s what my dad says. He says I just need to make the best choice I can.”

“Your dad is right.”

Maddening. Insufferable. “But… maybe I’m not ready to make that choice, I mean… maybe I don’t want to go right into college. Maybe I want to take a year off, try different things, maybe take some time to really think about it—”

“I’m sure your dad would understand that, if you—”

“I mean,” Kurt pressed on, shredding the edge of his coffee cup, a nervous habit he’d picked up when he’d forced himself to stop biting his nails, and now he couldn’t stop. “Maybe I just want to work for a while somewhere, get used to the whole daily grind thing—”

“You could intern, sure, that’s a great way to—”

Kurt blinked, and made himself look up. “Like, even here. Maybe I could work for you, here—”

“Absolutely not,” Blaine said, and his voice was soft, but stern, his face set. “That’s not even an option.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “Blaine, I know almost as much about running this place as you do—”

“And aside from the large helpings of sarcasm you provide to customers along with their caffeine fix, you’re just as good at it—because you’re smart, Kurt.” He shook his head, and his mouth was doing that half-quirked thing it did when it was failing to keep stuff in he probably would rather not have said. “You’re smart and talented and so creative—” it was a rush, a rush of words, now, low and fierce, “—and I’m not going to let you waste a year of your life here just because you’re afraid to trust that.” Blaine’s cheeks were red, his face flushed. “This place… it’s a monument, Kurt. To my fear. To my resentment of my father. To the ways that I failed—and a daily reminder that I let that rule my life, consume my life.” He stood up, and he looked so hurt, so hurt and so sorry and so bitter that Kurt’s heart was one big, twisted, miserable ache. “I’m not going to let it rule yours.”

Blaine walked away, and when he stepped behind the counter he looked impossibly distant, far away and distant and yet Kurt could see a muscle in his jaw, clenching, jumping, as he wiped down the counter and folded the towel and then leaned back, his arms crossed, gazing out the windows with apparent composure, as if Kurt wasn’t even there.

***

He had his book-bag over his shoulder, a heavy, solid weight, and both his hands wrapped around the leather strap, and he was stuck, frozen, staring—just staring, because something was wrong, something huge but small and simple but enormous and wrong but—something. Something.

The Lima Bean door swung open behind him as a new stream of customers entered, and a blast of icy wind hit the back of his neck like a cold slushie—a sudden shock, a shock to help him understand the other shock, the shock of seeing the corner where his table was—had been, had always been—with no table in it, just a wooden rack of travel mugs, standing in the spot where he’d sat for… for forever.

He looked around. All the tables had been rearranged. They all looked wrong. Everything was wrong.

“My table’s gone,” he told Blaine, once he’d marched up to the counter. His voice was perfectly steady, but he felt like he was going to be sick.

“Yeah, I wanted to shift things around a little,” Blaine said, and he didn’t meet Kurt’s eyes and his voice was forced-casual, and Kurt actually wanted to punch him. Grab him. Touch him. Make him see. “Thought a change might be good.”

There were a hundred things to say, a thousand—cutting things, and hurt things, and questioning things, and furious things—but all of them required breath he didn’t have, not now, he was breathless, breathless and he felt homeless and his eyes were already stinging, already burning, and in the end he just turned and went, without saying another word.

***

The heavy bag swung into him, swung away, and no matter how hard he hit it, it was always the same, everything was always the same—the future, looming and terrible and unknown, shifting and amorphous with no real place to plant his feet, and Blaine’s absence like the ache of a missing limb—alone. Alone.

One day bled into another, weeks ticked by like a dull and doomed metronome counting out nothing more than existence, one step, another, the sound of his boots gritting on winter slush, solitary and icy-grey, pointless, patternless steps that led nowhere. The bag swung into him and away, into him and away while he stayed still, driving an idiot rhythm that his gloved fists sounded, over and over in thudding, heavy, inescapable language, pounding on thick canvas. Alone.

***

His hands were perfectly steady when he opened the letter. When he read it. When he held it, carelessly dangling from his fingers, while he stared at the wall and blinked. When he lifted it, and read it again. Perfectly steady until he realized what he was going to do, what he was about to do—what he’d already decided to do, on some level. Then they started shaking. Hard.

He’d avoided the Lima Bean for three months—avoided even the street it stood on, and the place looked strange in the early spring sunshine, damp and wet and edged with new green on the trees. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. The smells of coffee and chocolate and steamed milk closed around him like a homecoming, and behind the counter Blaine turned around with a full bag of beans in his hands, glancing and then double-taking and then frozen, standing there, staring. Kurt walked up to the counter on feet he couldn’t really feel, faltering steps at first, then moving faster, pulling the letter out of his bag as he went.

“Parsons,” he said, and his voice wasn’t entirely steady, but he didn’t care. He held the letter out, and Blaine took it. “Design school, in New York—the interior design program, I… that’s what I decided to go for, and it was tough and I had to submit all this crazy stuff and I… I made it. I got in.” Saying it made it real—saying it to Blaine made it real, and while the future was still one big giant terrifying unknown, having one little part of it set made all the difference, made it something he didn’t feel he had to hide from any more. “I thought you’d want to know.”

Blaine looked from the letter to him, and back to the letter, and back to him—and then he was crying, not just wet-eyed but actually crying, and he dropped the letter and covered his face with his hands and that was when Kurt ducked around the counter, graceless and bumping into things but he had to get there, and he wrapped Blaine up in his arms and Blaine’s hands fisted into the back of his shirt and something deep in his chest resonated like a plucked bass string and then everything was still, just Blaine, heartbeat and warmth and the ache of him right there, and Kurt closed his stinging eyes and breathed.

***

It was what he imagined being high must be like—being around Blaine after so long without him, everything swoopy and dizzy and tinged with light and slightly surreal. His eyes were so wide-open they felt dry, because he couldn’t stop staring—at Blaine, at everything. Because it was all perfect.

Perfect—and then it clicked. “You put my table back.” Blaine shrugged, and grinned almost guiltily while his cheeks went faintly pink. “When did you put my table back?”

“Honestly? About five minutes after you walked out. Everything looked… wrong.”

“Oh.”

“It didn’t help.”

“No?”

“Nope. I just wanted to punch everyone who sat there.”

“I see.”

“Not that I did.”

“Good. Not-punching the customers is probably one of the tenets of entrepreneurial excellence.”

“They covered that at Harvard.”

It was like a mainline rush, looking at Blaine, just the two of them, eye-to-eye in the quiet murmur of the shop. “I think… I think I’ll go sit there.”

“Okay. Good.”

***

“Kurt, this is just… I knew you could do it. This is awesome.” His dad hugged him so hard Kurt felt his ribs creak, then slapped him on the shoulder before he sat down at the kitchen table, laying the letter out in front of him as if it were a precious thing. “I am… I’m so proud of you, Kurt. I’m so happy for you.”

Kurt sat down across from him, leaning his head on his hand. “It’s too bad, really—I don’t know what you’re going to do for fun, now that my whole collegiate future is squared away. Maybe you could start a bowling league called The Haranguers. You’d be unstoppable—”

“Very funny, smartass.” His dad beamed down at the letter again. “I’m having this framed, okay?” He tilted his head, squinting. “It’s a little… blotchy, though.”

Kurt peered at it. “Oh—yeah, that must have been Blaine, he kind of… cried on it. He was pretty happy.”

His dad leaned back in his chair. “Oh. So you and Blaine are back together?”

The constriction in his throat was so sudden he had to swallow twice before he could speak. “What—no. We’re not… dad, Blaine and I aren’t—we’re friends, we’ve never… I mean, he’s never. It’s not like that.”

“I know.” His dad’s eyes were frank, assessing—and inescapable. “But maybe… not for lack of trying on your part?”

He was stuck. And this was excruciating, but the look on his dad’s face suggested that he wasn’t going to let this go, so after a deep breath Kurt let his shoulders drop. “Okay, yes.” His voice was tight, and he had to force the rest out. “Only not really… trying. More like… wishing.”

His dad nodded, and reached across the table to squeeze Kurt’s hand. Then he let go.

Kurt’s stomach folded in on itself. “You’re not going to yell at me?”

His dad smiled, a sad smile, and shook his head. “Not today.”

“Really?”

His dad gave him a look. “Really. The whole you-can’t-help-who-you-love thing… I guess it sank in.” Kurt only had a moment or two to be submerged in the utter relief of that before his dad pushed back from the table, getting to his feet. “Now come on—I’m taking everyone out to dinner to celebrate. Bring your sketchbook—you can help design my bowling league shirts.”

***

Graduation was a blur; he remembered Carole crying and his dad crying and seemingly everyone on the planet crying except him, only then Blaine gave him a handkerchief and—oh, hey, look at that, apparently he was crying too. He got a piece of paper and a hat with an unruly tassel that he couldn’t do a thing with except destroy his careful coiffure. He had a heart-to-heart with Mercedes at her locker that made him feel like maybe the crying was just never going to stop, and got a bone-crushing hug from Finn and another one from Puck, Finn’s terrifying friend, who had somehow miraculously managed to graduate along with them.

The party at his house afterwards was crowded, loud and boisterous and packed with people who were there because of Finn rather than him—but his dad was happy, his dad was beaming and happy and a little tipsy and hugged him every time he passed by, and it was enough.

He found Blaine at the buffet table, staring at some canapés as if they held the secrets of the universe. “Prosciutto, Asian pear and date—be careful, they’re addictive.”

“I’d noticed,” Blaine said, smiling gently. “I had to try one, after I watched Finn put five in his mouth at once.” He shrugged. “An understandable impulse.”

Kurt looked him over. “Are you okay? You look… you know, a little tired.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that’s just a side-effect of being, you know, old.”

“Oh, shut up. It’s probably just the caffeine in your bloodstream dropping below toxic levels.”

Blaine grinned and shook his head. “I’m fine, Kurt. This is a good day. A great day.” He looked at Kurt, and the noise and chatter of the party seemed to drop away, as if there was nobody there but them. “I just… I’m really going to—”

“Blaine—it’s… Blaine, right?”

That was Rich, one of his father’s mechanics that Finn had made friends with—suddenly right there, stepping between them. Kurt took a step back, and Blaine blinked, evidently bewildered. “Uh, yeah, yes. I’m sorry, you’re…”

“Rich,” Rich said, reaching out to shake hands, and Kurt had no idea how he’d never managed to notice before, but Rich was well-muscled and tall and quite handsome in a scrubbed-up-grease-monkey way, with a full-wattage smile that he was presently beaming right at Blaine. “I work at the garage—I fixed up your Volvo, the last time you brought it in. And sometimes I go to the Lima Bean, for… uh. Coffee. I’ve seen you there.”

“Oh. Right. Hi.” Polite, noncommittal Blaine, friendly and polite and noncommittal, but Kurt’s stomach felt like it was curdling anyway because none of that mattered—Rich was at least twenty-five, and he was handsome and assertive and undoubtedly had all the other qualities that Blaine required in someone who was convenient, and all at once Kurt felt the party pressing on him like a weight, too much noise and too much laughter and too many people having a fantastic time, and expecting him to do the same.

“Excuse me,” he said softly, and turned towards the stairs, heading for the refuge of his room.

Nobody stopped him. He hadn’t expected anyone to, but it still stung.

***

Carole came in search of him some ten minutes later, and despite his fondness for her, he probably wouldn’t have let her chivvy him out of his room if he hadn’t been fairly sure the coast would be clear below. And it was—both Rich and Blaine were gone, and Kurt smiled and chattered and hugged his dad, and did what he sincerely hoped was an entirely convincing portrayal of a happy teenager at their graduation party.

When his face ached from smiling and he needed a break, he headed to the downstairs bathroom—and nearly dropped the cup of punch he was holding when the person who ducked out of it was Rich, slightly disgruntled-looking and frowning faintly.

“Rich.” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. “Uh… Blaine? Where’s—”

“He took off,” Rich said dismissively, shrugging. “Said he had shit to do. Don’t know why he’d go to a party when he was so busy, but, whatever.” Rich strode by him without another word, and Kurt stared down at the floor, at his own feet, at his cup of punch—at his own face reflected there, his eyes wide, his expression calm.

He memorized the calm from the inside—how it felt, because his brain was ticking along like a speeding engine, buzzing with questions he needed to know the answer to even though it felt like it might kill him to ask—and that was stupid, suddenly, the not-asking choice he’d made over and over now limned and glowing as one of the stupidest landmarks in his personal pantheon of questionable choices—

He could ask. He’d never asked. But… he could.

Probably.

***

Blaine’s hair was wet and not yet brushed back, and there was a thick towel slung around his neck, and he was wearing a t-shirt and light cotton pajama bottoms, and Kurt’s planned opening statement just floated away from him because Blaine’s cheeks went quickly pink as soon as he opened the door, and he was just. Beautiful.

“You left,” was what he said instead, and Blaine flushed darker.

“I know; I’m… I’m so sorry, Kurt; I looked for you before I left, but I couldn’t find—”

“Was it because of me?”

“What—no, of course not. I just… you were right, I was tired, and I—”

“Not—why you left.” His mouth was dry, so dry he had no idea how the hell he was going to get through this, with his dry mouth and his weirdly numb lips, and nothing in his throat when he swallowed. “You ducked out on Rich, and I thought… I wanted to know. If it was. Because of me. Because of… how you feel. About me.”

He’d said it. He’d actually said it. And it hadn’t killed him, so even if Blaine laughed at him or (worse) pitied him, at least he had that—proof that he could say it, and not die.

Blaine didn’t laugh. His hands went to either end of the towel hanging around his neck and squeezed visibly—hard enough that veins popped out on his arms. He was still deeply flushed, and he swayed almost imperceptibly when he took a deep breath, and licked his lips. “Yes.”

It was quiet, unbelievably quiet, nothing but soft breath and silence while the bottom dropped out of the world. Kurt walked forward and Blaine backed up, and Kurt closed Blaine’s front door and then leaned back against it, and Blaine’s face was pale except for the hectic spots in his cheeks, his eyes huge, his face drawn.

“I’m sorry—Kurt, I’m so, so sorry, you were never supposed to—it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Tell me.” It was barely more than a whisper. It was all he could manage.

“You were… I’ve known you for so long, and you’re… from the day I met you, you were this amazing kid—so much stronger, so much more… yourself than I was ever able to be when I was your age, and I just… I love that, I love that about you, and I’ve always wanted… I want that for you, and I tried—I always tried to take care of you.” Blaine stopped as if choked off, and turned his head to the side, looking away and swallowing, visibly, before turning back. “I always wanted to take care of you.”

“Blaine.”

“And you’re my friend—my best friend,” Blaine continued, his voice filled with so much bitterness that Kurt’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. “I can’t tell you how much that’s made a difference to me, to my life—but you did. So much. And so when all of a sudden I was so in love with you that I couldn’t see straight, and I can’t stop looking at you and thinking… things I shouldn’t, things I should never, ever—”

“Blaine, stop.”

Blaine stopped. His mouth was twisted and his brows were drawn down and he looked so ashamed, but he met Kurt’s eyes with his face full of sorrow and took a breath, and then another—and then his eyes went wide and his breath caught audibly, and he finally released the towel from the death-grip he had on it, his hands falling limply to his sides. “Oh.”

Kurt felt abruptly naked, and his aching heart turned over and then raced up to a gallop. His face was on fire.

Blaine’s head tilted a little, his eyes soft. “When… how long?”

“Always.” He had to stop, close his eyes. Breathe. Open his eyes again. “I’ve always been in love with you, Blaine.” Saying it was like freefalling, like tumbling through space, terrifying and wonderful.

Blaine blinked, slowly. “I’m… I didn’t know.”

“I know.”

“I don’t… that must have been… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He reached out, took one of Blaine’s warm hands in his own. “I know. Make it up to me?”

Blaine lifted his hand, looked at it, at their two hands, joined. Then he looked up. “You’re shaking.”

Kurt squeezed Blaine’s fingers. “I’m scared.”

Blaine stepped back, but Kurt didn’t let go. “No, Kurt—you don’t have to be scared—I would never, you have to know, I wouldn’t ever—”

“Blaine.” Kurt didn’t try to keep the tremor out of his voice. He reached out and caught Blaine’s other hand, and squeezed that one too. He took a step away from the support of the door, holding Blaine’s hands to keep his balance when the whole world seemed to tilt. “Just… take care of me. Please. One last time.”

***

The lights were down and there was music—Billie Holiday, and mostly he’d been surprised that Blaine had any music that Kurt hadn’t given him—but quiet, he could still hear the crickets outside, coming through the windows. They were dancing. He hadn’t meant to, he just moved to the music when Blaine turned it on, but then Blaine was there and the two of them were close, and then closer—and then dancing.

“This is nice.” He bit his lip afterwards. Kurt Hummel, master of understatement.

“You’re beautiful,” Blaine said, soft and awed, and despite the low light Kurt could see him blushing.

He had to look away. Had to look back. “So… I guess you were lying when you told me you sucked at being romantic.”

Blaine smiled and his mouth twisted ruefully, and he let his head drop, tucking into Kurt’s neck and oh. “I wasn’t lying. But I think… it’s different. I think… being in love… makes it different.”

“You’ve been in love before.”

Blaine’s hands tightened on his waist, and Kurt felt rather than saw him shake his head. “No.” He heard Blaine take a deep breath. “I wanted to be. But… no.”

Oh. “Oh.” His thumb brushed the back of Blaine’s neck, and when Blaine shivered, he did too. “But… you are now?”

“Oh yeah.” Crazy he calls me, sure I’m crazy… “I can tell because of the panic.”

He laughed—he didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help it—he laughed high and soft and helpless, and Blaine laughed too, shaking in his arms and then pulling back with his eyes welling, wide and dark and shining for him, and then they were swaying, still swaying back and forth and then kissing, Blaine’s mouth on his, something that opened him, unzipped him all the way down from the inside out, a gentle, soft, slow undoing that he had no way to stand against—that he didn’t want to. One kiss and then another, blending and melting, another and another and Blaine’s lips were so soft and he was melting—

“Blaine.” He felt stripped, raw, tender to his finest nerve. His mouth was tingling. “Take me to bed?”

Blaine took his hand. Squeezed. His eyes reflected all the light in the room as he stared at Kurt’s mouth, then up to his eyes, and back to his mouth again. “I… yes.”

***

Blaine’s bed was wide and soft and smelled like summer, and in it, lying next to him, Blaine looked surprisingly young, gilded with low amber light from the one lamp in the corner of the room. Despite the pounding of his heart and the flutter in his stomach, it made Kurt smile. “You look about sixteen.”

Blaine blinked. “I’m really, really not.”

“I know.” He took Blaine’s hand and drew it to him, resting it over his heart. “I’ve never done this before.”

“I know.” Blaine’s hand on his chest was warm, so warm. “We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

Kurt covered Blaine’s hand with his own. “I… pretty much want to do everything.” He said it quietly, but it still made his face flush hot.

Blaine closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. His cheeks were pink. “Okay, well, just let me know if… if you don’t—”

Kurt was warm with daring when he moved in and covered Blaine’s mouth with his own. Blaine made a soft, near-pained sound and then wrapped him up, rolling on top of him and kissing him deeply—and it was different, so different doing this lying down, he was hot and he was dizzy and Blaine was on him, heavy and on top of and all around him, kissing him and oh God he got hard so fast it was like all the blood left his brain, everything feeding down to where he was suddenly so hard and vulnerable, aching.

“Kurt—” moaned between kisses, and Blaine was hard, he could feel it, solid and right up against him, so close despite layers of clothing between them. “Jesus.”

“Don’t stop,” was what came out of his mouth, hushed and desperate, and his muscles stretched and then shuddered, settling—he got Blaine’s hips in his hands, then his ass, round and muscular and perfect to hold onto. “I’m good, you feel so good, please—”

Kisses. Hot. Wet. Hungry. Blaine’s hardness against him, slow rocking and he felt half-crazy and like he might just slide off the surface of the world if Blaine wasn’t there to hold him. Blaine’s hands slipped under him and tilted him and oh fuck all the strength went out of his legs and they went lax, open and lax, and Blaine squeezed his thighs and slid against him and everything shifted—there was nothing left for him to do, nothing he could do but kiss and breathe and moan and let Blaine rub up against the neediest part of him, and put his shaking arms around Blaine’s neck. He arched back into the pillows when Blaine kissed his throat, setting his teeth there, scrape and nip and then a fierce and tender bite and Kurt didn’t have time for any warning or hesitation he just—came, suddenly and shockingly overwhelmed and over the edge and coming in Blaine’s arms, crying out softly and holding on, throbbing hard and undone and… oh.

He pushed his face into the curve of Blaine’s neck and panted, shivering, and his face was so hot he thought he might pass out, and Blaine shook on top of him, clinging to him, reaching for his face to tilt him up, kissing his open, gasping mouth until he moaned again.

“Sorry, I…” he stopped, swallowed, tried again. “That was… really fast, I know—”

“That was hot,” Blaine said, and he looked like he meant it, his eyes dark and his lips swollen and his hair kind of all over the place—sex; that was what Blaine looked like when he was having sex, and Kurt’s dick twitched hard in his pants. “That was so hot—”

Blaine kissed him and rolled, strong arms pulling Kurt along so he was on his knees, on top, dizzy all over again. Blaine’s hands ran from his shoulders to his waist, steadying him, and when the kiss ended Kurt swayed a little, but he didn’t fall.

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m also a mess.”

“Oh. I…”

“Can we be naked now?” Like somebody else—not himself, he felt like somebody else saying these things, somebody much bolder than he was—but no, it was him, furiously blushing and already wanting to hide, and saying it anyway.

He undressed under the sheets, feeling shy and modest and ridiculous and painfully turned-on, and he wanted to watch Blaine but the most he could do was sneak an occasional glance, and each time he did his heart flipped and his stomach trembled helplessly because God Blaine was just… perfect, so casually perfect like looking like he did was something that just was, not like something that had been designed to make Kurt all lightheaded and woozy with his broad shoulders and trim waist and his face…

“Hi.” Peeking out from under with the sheet pulled up to his chin like a shield, and had he ever been more absurd?

“Hi.” Blaine reached out and brushed the hair back from his forehead gently, staring at him, and the expression on his face was pretty much the only thing that made the absurdity bearable. “Is… are you okay?”

“You’re too far away from me.” He sounded almost petulant to his own ears, but Blaine slipped the rest of the way under the sheets and came to him, so he decided to let that go. Blaine took him in his arms—naked, under the sheets they were naked, Blaine’s naked body and his own and he could not stop shaking, delicious skin-to-skin and hair and smoothness and muscle and hard-softness and Kurt made a noise he couldn’t help making and made another one when Blaine’s mouth closed on his, and then his eyes fluttered shut, and everything was different.

Touch. Feel. Sensation. Kisses, slow and patient, coaxing him—drawing things out of him, and Blaine’s hands on his nakedness felt amazing, a warm and safe and wanted touch, something to push into and against, and when Blaine’s hand slid down his stomach to his aching cock he went with it, pushed into it, pushed himself into Blaine’s hand and then had to gasp, hazily opening his eyes.

“Oh.” He sounded like he’d just had some kind of revelation, like someone had just explained the axis-tilt of the earth to him. Which didn’t seem that far off, actually. “Please.”

Blaine made a low, growly noise and let go, which was tragic and inexcusable—but he was digging in his nightstand only for a moment and then he was back, and Kurt didn’t really have time for much more than a soft, interrogative noise before there were kisses again and Blaine right against him, pressed against him all the way down and Blaine’s now-slick hand was back around him—around both of them, and Kurt jerked and shuddered helplessly, clinging to Blaine’s shoulders.

He was blushing so hot he felt radioactive, and what he wanted to do most was hide—but apparently the part of his brain that was in charge now had other ideas, quite different ideas, and that was the part of him that tugged the sheet down, shoving it down restlessly. He broke off kissing to look, his own paleness and Blaine’s darker skin and the muscles in Blaine’s arm flexing as he stroked, both of them together, red-flushed and plum-dark pressed together, wet and sliding and Blaine was flexing his hips at the same time which was insane, crazy when Kurt was struggling just to remember to breathe, slick-tight pressure all around his cock and that’s when he started moaning, loudly, pushing into Blaine’s grip.

Blaine was looking at him, wide-eyed and panting softly through his open mouth and… watching, taking Kurt in like he was everything, and Kurt had to close his eyes again because that was excruciating and wonderful and terrible and—

“You’re so fucking sexy,” Blaine breathed it in his ear, low and husky and raw, and Kurt found his mouth and kissed him again because he just couldn’t take it, not with everything else. He wound his arms around Blaine’s neck and held on, and with Blaine’s tongue teasing his it was like everything was magnified, magnified, intensified and connected—Blaine’s silky tongue and his slick, strong hand and the slippery thrusts against him, and Kurt’s heart was pounding and his cock was twitching and his balls were aching, and he couldn’t stop. He could not stop moaning in Blaine’s mouth, could not stop his hands from making fists in Blaine’s hair, could not stop himself from shaking, taking, he was entirely given into hands that knew what they were doing, hands that worked him with blinding skill and he had to stop kissing to gasp because he was going to come—again—too fast, so fast, but he couldn’t stop.

“Blaine—” he sounded throaty and half-panicked, and he couldn’t open his eyes but he could feel Blaine watching him, and he clung to that because there was just no way he was going to come with Blaine staring at him, only Blaine groaned low and wanting and Blaine fucked against him and stroked him and it was too much, too good, he lasted three more seconds before he sobbed and came, utterly exposed, surrendered and lost and awash in more pleasure than it felt like his body could hold.

He lost some time, coming down—there were kisses, sweet and wet and gentle, and warm arms around him, and when his eyes finally fluttered open Blaine was still looking at him, but it was welcome, scary but welcome, so loving, and he’d never felt so… safe. He was naked. Blaine was naked. And it felt… completely right.

Completely right—their bodies fit perfectly together with their legs entwined and Blaine’s arms around him, completely right except—

“Oh, God.” Blaine was hard, so hard against his hip. “You’re still—you didn’t—”

“Kurt—it’s good, it’s okay, I’m good—”

“Is it me?” Stupid, panicked babbling, but he couldn’t help it. “Did I do something—or… not do something… what’s wrong—”

“Kurt.” Blaine’s pupils were so dilated his eyes were near-black. “Shh.” Blaine kissed him, and Kurt felt Blaine’s hard cock twitch against his hip. “You didn’t… I’m—God, I’m so turned on my teeth hurt; you’re the sexiest man I’ve ever laid eyes on and if I had less self-control just watching you feel good would… well, I might have drowned you, at this point, and I—uhh.”

He had Blaine, in his hand—big, and hot, and slick with lube, and just that caused a kind of explosion in his brain, Blaine’s big, gorgeous cock in his grip, touching that part of him suddenly the newest most-intimate thing, the intensity and power of it, how his heart felt holding Blaine in his hand, like they were wrapped up in each other. His heart was beating, beating. “Blaine.”

“Mmm?” Blaine’s lips were pressed together, and his eyebrows were drawn up, and he was hot and hard and beautiful, and so close, they were so close to each other.

“You could… would you… inside me? Do you—can we—do you do that?” Another silent explosion in his head, just saying it, a new level of naked.

“I… oh. We can… we can try it, if you want to. But we don’t—we can stop, if you—”

“I want. I want to try.”

Blaine was wide-eyed and solemn, and he looked young all over again, vulnerable and somehow… chaste; an odd word given the circumstances—but he did, he looked like a choirboy who’d just been tempted with his first kiss, and Kurt’s heart turned over in his chest.

“Okay.”

There was a lot of kissing, kissing to the point where he forgot everything else, forgot that there was something they were working up to—until suddenly he would remember and his face would go blazing-hot, and his breath would hitch and his whole body would shiver, hard—but then Blaine would roll them again, roll and kiss and touch him, warm, safe hands and deep, delicious kisses—and back under he’d go, drowning sweetly.

He was on top when Blaine went from squeezing his hips to touching his ass for the first time, and they both moaned—Blaine’s hands were so warm, and strong, and his ass felt so bare, somehow more naked than the rest of him, and he felt physically conscious of that part of him in a whole new way, every nerve tingling and alive to touch—waiting, wanting.

His cock was hard again alongside Blaine’s, pressed firmly between their bellies, and it twitched when Blaine’s fingers slid deeper—his cock twitched, his hole twitched, and then he couldn’t kiss Blaine any more because he had to bury his hot face in the curve of Blaine’s neck, gasping for air and wondering if he was somehow going to cook himself from the endless blushing, working his hips down and then up again because—touch, touch, slipping circles and teases right where he was tenderest and right where he needed it and he was so sensitive…

“Don’t let me come yet.” Stupid thing to say, cataclysmically stupid, like Blaine was going to be able to stop him, like Blaine had magical powers over hair-trigger teenage libidos and could—

“Kiss me,” Blaine’s voice was soft and urgent, and when Kurt pulled his head up it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds, like his fragile stem of a neck was just going to give out from the strain—but then kissing, and Blaine’s hands went away and then came back cool, slippery, right at the center of him, and his legs twined between Kurt’s and then spread, pushing Kurt’s thighs apart—so slowly, so gradually, little by little, and Kurt’s heart revved and skipped and then pounded hard.

“Open your mouth.” Just a rough whisper, but he did it—opened and Blaine’s tongue touched his, invaded his mouth, and Blaine’s fingers rubbed circles, soft circles, and pressed—and then Kurt couldn’t close his mouth, he was rigid and caught in ecstasy and sliding on Blaine’s hard body with his mouth and his ass and his cock all aching, an unfamiliar combination of pleasures that nevertheless went right to the root of him, caught him and captured him and kept him suspended—he wasn’t coming, he felt past coming, somehow, past it and on the edge of it and like he had so, so much and still needed more. He rode Blaine’s fingers as best he could, the ache and stretch and burn there spurring him on, sucking on Blaine’s tongue and grinding against his hard stomach and wanting, wanting, wanting.

He got impatient, he knew he did, he remembered making soft, needy noises and sighs and trying to tell Blaine with his hips that he was ready, but either Blaine didn’t speak hip-wiggle or he didn’t agree, because he fucked Kurt with his fingers until Kurt felt ready to cry with frustration, until he was drenched with sweat and near-sobbing, bucking and arching and clawing Blaine’s shoulders a little.

When Blaine finally rolled him over and laid him down it was like the world spun, like flat on his back was somehow dangerously off-balance, but then Blaine moved in and kissed him and everything settled—he settled, sinking into the bed and right where he was supposed to be and spreading his legs wide, moaning when Blaine lifted his knees and folded them up.

“We can stop any time,” Blaine told him, up on his knees and rolling on a condom without even looking at it—because he was staring right at Kurt, his eyes burning dark. “Any time—it’s not supposed to… it shouldn’t hurt, it…” he trailed off and went quiet, quiet and still, his hands on Kurt’s knees. “Kurt.”

Kurt sat up. He reached out, taking Blaine’s face in his hands, everything in him brimming-full, and used his thumb to brush a bright track from one of Blaine’s soft cheeks. “Be with me.” He pulled Blaine down with him and wrapped him up, touching him, soothing him. “You and me. Okay?”

“Okay.” Almost too soft to hear, but a sigh afterwards melted into a kiss, patient and slow and when Blaine pushed inside him, there was no pain—but it was huge, it felt huge, like his heart had to move to make room. Blaine shuddered and that was when the first wave of pleasure hit him—unfamiliar and enormous and inescapable, an undoing.

“Oh.” He held on, had to close his eyes because he could feel Blaine everywhere, could feel Blaine down to his toes and Blaine was groaning, fucking him slow and gentle and feeling so good—like there were no barriers left between them at all, like Blaine’s pleasure was his own and his was Blaine’s and they were just knotted together in a loop of desire that fed back on itself.

Kissing, and rocking, and under his hands Blaine’s back was slick with sweat and tight with trembling muscle, and Kurt held on, dizzy and greedy and drenched with goodness—

“Blaine.”

“Mmm…”

“You’ll… this feels amazing and I… I don’t want to be the only one who…” He slid his hands up to Blaine’s face and held him, and they were eye to eye, open mouth to open mouth. “You won’t hold back, will you?”

A tightening of the tension low in his belly, watching Blaine’s face, watching Blaine move in him. “I don’t… think… that’s going to be an option—you feel so good, Kurt,” Blaine looked almost panicked, his voice was soft and hoarse and broken-sounding, and Kurt curled his fingers into Blaine’s hair and held him there, and worked his hips to fuck himself on Blaine’s cock, and let the waves of heat and want in him take over.

“Kurt—”

“Fuck me, Blaine.” He was hazy and lost and hard, rubbing up against Blaine’s stomach and then down, tingling everywhere and aching, holding Blaine right where he needed him. “Come in me, please—”

Sensory overload between his body and his heart, watching Blaine’s face, watching him groan and gasp and shiver. Blaine bit his lip and Kurt felt him struggling, fighting to hold on, fighting to hold back and losing, losing so sweetly, and he won when Blaine squeezed his thighs with shaking hands and shifted him, opened him, fucking him hard and fast with a near-blinding flash of pleasure at every stroke, groaning like he was in pain.

He was holding off, right on the edge of everything and just—holding, stubborn and determined with his fingers still twined in Blaine’s hair, refusing to let go until Blaine did, ignoring the slick, wanting throb of his own body—until Blaine’s hands found his face and kissed him, kissed him hard and cried out and he could feel Blaine coming, muscles rigid and his cock pounding like a beating heart. Blaine came inside him and all he had to do was let go—so he did, gone and over the edge, coming so hard it hurt, moaning softly and tugging Blaine’s hair and kissing him deeply, kissing him and coming and letting go, letting it all go, letting everything go.

***

Some day he’ll come along, the man I love…

Billie Holiday was still drifting in from the other room, and everything seemed caught out of time, suspended, an endless stretch in which the two of them had somehow always been here, curled up with their heads sharing one pillow, unable to look away from each other.

Kurt blinked, and reached out to touch one of Blaine’s unruly curls. He really was kind of a hot, sweaty, sexy mess. “It was the opera, that night at the opera, wasn’t it?”

“The opera,” Blaine sighed, and his cheeks went a bit pink. “That was… that was the first time I realized that you’d somehow managed to magically transform yourself from ‘adorable kid’ to ‘devastatingly gorgeous guy’, yes.” He raised an eyebrow. “Very sneaky of you; I had no warning.”

“Sorry,” Kurt drawled.

“You are not,” Blaine replied, grinning, and then rolled onto his back and drew one arm up over his head, tousled and carelessly beautiful. “So, yes—suddenly and out of nowhere there you were, all… uh, grown up, and I thought it was just that night, the circumstance, but it wasn’t. Once I saw you that way I just… couldn’t go back, couldn’t see you at all without feeling… a lot of wrong feelings.”

Kurt reached out and touched Blaine’s arm with one finger. “They weren’t wrong, Blaine.”

Blaine’s lashes lowered. “You were sixteen. I was twenty-nine. That’s… pretty wrong, Kurt.” He took a breath. “Even now, it’s… this is. Still. Pretty wrong.”

Kurt let his hand rest around Blaine’s bicep. “This is you, and me. And that’s just… not wrong, Blaine.” He squeezed. “It’s never going to feel wrong to me.”

Blaine turned towards him again. “Yeah.” He reached out and touched Kurt’s cheek, gently. “Not to me, either—even when I think it should.”

Kurt blinked. Breathed. And licked his lips. “You opened the Lima Bean in… 2004, wasn’t it?”

Blaine’s head tilted, and his brows drew down. “Um. Yes? Is that somehow relevant to my cradle-robbing ways?”

“It is.” He drew himself up, propped his head on his hand. “So it’s been over eight years since your last rash act of immaturity—don’t you think you’re due for another one?”

“You mean… you mean us, this—”

“No.” He took another breath. “I mean… come to New York with me.”

Blaine just stared at him.

“I’m serious,” Kurt continued, and he wanted to reach out, wanted to touch, but didn’t. “Come try everything, and find what you love best and then do it—or just… you could just make very artistic coffee in a city of artists. Anything. Just… come with me?” Blaine was smiling, and Kurt knew he should probably just shut up, but he couldn’t. “You’re smiling, but I can’t—I can’t tell if that’s your okay-Kurt-you-win smile or your sorry-Kurt-I-hate-disappointing-you-but-no smile—and I thought I knew all your smiles by now, and I—”

“Kurt.” Blaine reached out to him and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. “It’s… not either of those. It’s just…” he squeezed Kurt’s hand. “I put everything—this house, and the business—on the market today. This morning.”

“You.” He swallowed. “You did?”

“I did.”

“Oh.” Buzzing, the whole world was buzzing. “But… where are you going?”

Blaine shrugged. “I thought I might try San Francisco—if you weren’t crazy about the idea of me following you to New York.”

“Oh my God.” Blaine made a soft oof noise when Kurt landed on him. “Oh my God. Really?”

“Really,” Blaine croaked, and Kurt lifted up enough to let him breathe.

“But that’s… you must have been… okay. Just—tell me.”

“I was waiting—waiting for my five years to be up, waiting to make plans, and I just… kept not making them, and then I realized—I started the business for one reason, but by then it was something else, and I had… I stayed for you. It seemed like… believe it or not, it seemed like the grown-up thing to do, at the time, so… I grew up.” Blaine’s smile was soft. “I decided that I wanted to be there for you, when… for as long as you needed me.”

Blaine took his hand again. Kurt squeezed his fingers. “I’m always going to need you, Blaine.”

Blaine squeezed back. “Well, then, I guess San Francisco is off the table.”

Kurt curled into the curve of his arm, snuggling close. “I’ll aim for grad school there, okay?”

Blaine sighed softly. “I’m going to spend a majority of my life watching you wrestle with homework, aren’t I?”

Kurt poked him. “You think it’s totally hot.”

Blaine poked him back. “I really, really do.”

~End

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Endnotes: yes, okay, this is more sweetness than I usually dole out, but I allowed it on account of the general levels of angst going around—I wanted a refuge, a safe zone, a tiny haven of weirdly domestic bliss—and this was what I ended up with.
> 
> When I started this story, I was pondering the conundrum of age-gap fic (and yes, I know I’ve written quite a lot of that, but every time I think I’m done writing it, I turn out to be disastrously wrong) where it seems like either there must be a significant amount of angst about the connection, or the older character must be (at least morally, in this pairing) OOC—and that turned into a provocation, a puzzle, a dare: could I write age-gap fic where that was not the case? (The answer was ‘no’, btw; not in this story—but I had a lovely time trying).
> 
> And finally: I firmly believe that all Klaine writers have at least one coffeehouse AU in them—this would be mine.


End file.
